Eaglemania: Collecting Japanese Art in Gilded Age America

Boston College’s McMullen Museum of Art is sporting a little extra university pride with its winter exhibit Eaglemania: Collecting Japanese Art in Gilded Age America, featuring restored sculptures, ceramics and more from Japan’s Meiji period (1868 to 1912). Recent conservation of a bronze eagle donated to BC in the 1950s by Larz Anderson’s estate sparked a further desire to explore the piece’s Meiji origins and how it ended up in the U.S. Showcasing various depictions of birds of prey in Japanese art, such as in Suzuki Chokichi’s Eagle with Outstretched Wings (seen above), the exhibit also examines American art collectors’ fondness for the pieces. Soar toward the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College from Feb. 11 to June 2. / Caroline Long